Science Policy Developments: NSF, NASA, DOE, Fusion, NIST
NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION, NASA FUNDING:
Recent information indicates that the Senate VA, HUD, Independent Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee will wait until after Labor Day to complete work on its version of H.R. 2491. This bill provides funding for NSF and NASA for fiscal year 1994. It is thought that letters to individual senators concerning NSF funding will be particularly important during the next few weeks. For a copy of our brochure, “Communicating With Congress,” send a self-addressed, stamped, business-sized envelope to: AIP Office of Government & Institutional Relations; 1630 Connecticut Avenue, NW; #750; Washington, D.C. 20009. Or, see FYI #29.
DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY:
President Clinton will nominate Martha Krebs to become the director of DOE’s Office of Energy Research. Krebs is currently an associate laboratory director for planning and development at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, where her duties include strategic scientific program planning. Up until 1983, she was a staff director for a House science subcommittee. Krebs, who has a Ph.D. in Physics, will have responsibility for a $3 billion budget which includes the SSC, fusion, high energy and nuclear physics, basic energy sciences, scientific computing, and biological and environmental research programs. Her nomination hearing will be before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources; no date has been scheduled.
FUSION PROGRAM:
By voice vote, and without debate, the Senate has passed S. 646, the International Fusion Energy Act of 1993. The subject of a May 6 hearing (see FYI #62) at which Senate sponsor J. Bennett Johnston (D-LA) characterized DOE’s fusion program as drifting, S. 646 would focus fusion funding on the International Thermonuclear Experimental Program Reactor (ITER). The bill authorizes (but does not appropriate/fund) $380 for fusion energy in FY 1994, increasing to $425 million in FY 1995. It now goes to three different House committees; as of today a companion House bill had not been introduced. Rep. Bob Walker (R-PA) may sponsor this bill.
NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF STANDARDS AND TECHNOLOGY:
Despite much talk about greatly expanded NIST funding, the House voted on July 20 to reduce the Clinton Administration’s request for the agency by $101,512,000. Total funding would be $433,686,000, an increase of $49,679,000. All is not lost, however. A Senate Appropriations Committee aide reports that their version of this bill, H.R. 2519, fully funds NIST at the requested level. If so, and if passed by the full Senate without amendment, a House-Senate conference committee will later this year resolve the final funding level for fiscal year 1994.
